I-Corps: Quiet car wheel technology

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of new strategies for sound isolation for vehicle interior noise induced by the friction of tires on pavement using highly reflecting acoustic metamaterials. One broad impact of the proposed project is to make a paradigm shift in the noise, vibration, comfort of vehicles. This technology is a meta-surface which can be used to control and isolate sound generated by a moving car. The proposed acoustic metamaterial partially fills the interior of the tires, thus isolating them acoustically from the car cabin. The proposed design significantly reduces the noise arising from tire-pavement interaction at a wide range of vehicle speeds over acoustic frequencies below 2 kHz. Robust lightweight meta-structures provide substantial interior noise reduction and a comfortable driving experience without affecting tire performance. Considering the growing automotive market size, the proposed technology can be a catalyst for economic growth both locally and globally. The proposed quiet technology can help solve the existing environmental noise pollution in other fields and may, ultimately, have long-term impacts on health including anxiety, depression, and heart diseases.This I-Corps project is based on the development of automotive vehicle noise pollution reduction technology. This noise often comes from tire-pavement interaction, e.g., friction and impact. Currently efforts aim to use sound absorbers and/or cavity resonators to suppress peaks in the noise spectrum. The tools applied to reach this goal are acoustic foams and Helmholtz resonators. However, these noise reduction methods are focused on suppression of the tire cavity resonance, and they are effective within a relatively narrow bandwidth. A different approach is necessary for better noise reduction of the sound generated at low frequency and the wideband noise caused by tire-pavement interaction. While it is difficult to deal with the low frequency and undesired broadband sound using conventional materials due to the limited design constraints, this project will use acoustic metamaterials and artificially engineered structures that can have a compact shape while providing exotic acoustic properties. The proposed approach uses an artificially designed, reflecting acoustic can be extended to other objects generating low-frequency mechanical noise.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.